A Navy Fighter Pilot Shares Her Ten Wisest Words

What Carey Lohrenz learned from the pilot’s seat of a Navy Tomcat is good work and life advice.

Steven Polunsky / Via Flickr: polunsky

The lessons are distilled here through the Twitter voices of attendees at her speech to the Texas Association of State Systems for Computing and Communications on August 3, 2015.

1. Try.

Endi Silva @endimso

The jet doesn't know the difference between a male and female pilot. #perceptiongap

03:02 PM - 03 Aug 2015

Via Twitter

2. Focus.

TASSCC @TASSCC

The ave age of those that work on an aircraft carrier is 19. Extreme focus is key @careylohrenz #TASSCC

02:17 PM - 03 Aug 2015

Via Twitter

3. Fail.

DoubleHorn @DoubleHorn

"#Failure has taught me what I'm good at..." survey #TASSCC @TASSCC @CareyLohrenz

02:39 PM - 03 Aug 2015

Via Twitter

4. Strive.

Jon Lee @jonlee11

Get comfortable with being uncomfortable. If not, you're getting complacent. In military, if you're complacent, you get killed #TASSCC

02:41 PM - 03 Aug 2015

Via Twitter

5. Prepare.

Jon Lee @jonlee11

Study says 1 hr of effective planning saves 200 execution errors. People say "we're too busy to plan" bc they're fixing those errors #TASSCC

03:01 PM - 03 Aug 2015

6. Relax.

Jon Lee @jonlee11

As a pilot, you don't yell "I'm out of gas!" You say "[code#] bingo" because it doesn't induce stress. And everyone loves bingo #TASSCC

03:05 PM - 03 Aug 2015

Via Twitter

7. Believe.

Dominica Council @DominicaCouncil

@TASSCC

02:45 PM - 03 Aug 2015

Via Twitter

8. Trust.

See #7.

9. Persevere.

TASSCC @TASSCC

Being true to your purpose is about being tenacious and finding a "3rd way" when necessary @careylohrenz #TASSCC #leadership

02:58 PM - 03 Aug 2015

Via Twitter

10. Laugh.

Tom Niland @tom_niland

Learning to fly with @CareyLohrenz !!!! #TASSCC15

02:07 PM - 03 Aug 2015

Via Twitter

A version of this first appeared on Medium.